APRIL, 2008

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THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVING
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Permit No. 2

ALEX PIFER’S VISION FOR HOME

BY STEPHANIE RICHARDS
BOOK REVIEW
Talk show icon Jerry Williams wasn’t a bad guy
By Richard Murphy
The year was either 1957 or
1958. The volume on my radio was
low enough so that my parents
could not hear it downstairs. I was
listening to early rock and roll
when I should have been sleeping.
Usually, I tired quickly, turned off
the red motorola set and fell asleep.
One night, not being sleepy after
the 10:00 p.m. news, I heard the
promo for the next show.
Thinking it might be more music, I
kept listening.
It wasn’t song, it was a force of
nature. It was Jerry Williams, the
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6 THE STURBRIDGE TIMES MAGAZINE
BURNING UP THE AIR,
JERRY WILLIAMS, TALK RADIO,
AND THE LIFE IN BETWEEN
By Steve Elman and Alan Tolz.
Commonwealth Editions, Beverly, MA, 2008.
337 pages. Amazon price: $18.45
man who was pioneering talk radio
in the Boston area. He can claim as
much as anyone to have invented
the genre. From the mid-fifties to
the new millennium he was on
Boston Radio with a few breaks for
a mid-life crisis here and there. For
put together a biography that is
a page turner. Burning Up the
Air, Jerry Williams, Talk Radio
and the Life In Between reads as
if it were a labor of love. Not
that the authors, Steve Elman
and Alan Tolz, were likely to be
above wanting to throttle the
man on occasion. From their
tales, it is obvious Williams could
much of the time,Williams was the
try the patience of a saint.
dominant radio personality in the
It’s all in the book. How he
market.
probed callers to get a story or
Two of his many producers have
an answer. Occasionally, when
collected everything that could be
he found himself battling with a
found about the man and have
particularly, unreasonable caller,
talked to everyone they could to
he would shoot out a familiar
line:“They’re out there tonight!”
Later, as he aged, and even
though you knew he would do
nothing else but radio, he would
vent his frustration by shouting,
“I’m getting out of the business.”
A high school drop-out, actual-
ly, a high school flunk-out, Jerry
still had an expert knowledge of
many issues. But it was not only
mere knowledge, it was what he
knew how to position that infor-
mation that set him apart. The
authors make the point about
how he “knew how to select the
hottest topics for discussion,
how to set things up in an hour,
how to strike sparks in an inter-
view, how to smoke out and
shape good calls, how to keep
the momentum going.” Today’s
crop of talkers don’t really seem
to be as skillful as Williams.
COLD BEER There is another aspect of his
popularity that I had never
FINE WINE thought about before reading
this book. While one may not
FULL LIQUOR
call his voice operatic, it was
pleasant and in no way grating as
Hours Kitchen Bar
are many on the radio today.
Monday Closed Closed
Elman and Tolz discussed his
Tuesday 11:30-9pm 11:30-10pm
training under a mentor. Jerry
Wednesday 11:30-9pm 11:30-10pm had a voice described as a “high
Thursday 11:30-9pm 11:30-10pm
baritone.” His acting coach, Bob
Friday 11:30-10pm 11:30-12am
Saturday 11:30-10pm 11:30-12am
Breyer, told him how to use the
Sunday 11:30-9pm 11:30-9pm
voice and through training in
radio plays,Williams must have
learned something.
Luncheon Special: Through the book, one can
Pizza by the Slice recognize the political changes
until 4 pm in Massachusetts and the nation
such that Jerry, uber liberal
500 Main Street through the first part of his
Sturbridge career, was by the end consid-
ered a conservative by many. He
508-347-1740 Continued on page 17
THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVING
Crap shoot
Continued from previous page
Of course, compulsive gamblers
will find an outlet, with or without a
casino. A math professor told me
that the lottery is a tax on people
who can’t do math. That must be
true of the people lined up at the
convenience store who are trying to
hone in on the relative merits of myr-
iad scratch tickets.
I understand the rationale of
allowing Indians to do what they
want on tribal lands. The Pequots of
Foxwoods were treated horribly by
the colonists and the Wampanoag
were ethnically cleansed. The
Mohegans of the other Connecticut
venue, were, however, quislings. One
question that is never brought up is
how Indian are our local indigens. I
attended an Earth Day event on our
common several years ago and there
Jerry Williams
Continued from page 6
never thought he went through a
metamorphosis from one political
view to another. The authors
describe his outlook,“Jerry had
always presented himself on and
of the air as his own man. Since
the late sixties, he’d been uncom-
fortable with labels of all sorts.
When forced to choose from con-
ventional terms, he might opt for
“liberal,” even when he felt that
what had come to be known as
“liberalism” had moved toward
something completely alien to his
felling about the role of govern-
ment.” He was uncomfortable
with Dukakis in power as he had
been with Nixon. He probably
gagged at the description by a
Boston Globe writer, Clea Simon,
that he had purveyed “conserva-
tive chat.”
The structure of the book is
chronological except for the last
chapter. The authors intersperse
a timeline of the major national
and world events that are happen-
ing contemporaneously so one is
never lost for the era. Event fol-
lows event in sequence and the
reader will be through it in no
time. He was not a perfect man
and the authors present him, in
the words of Oliver Cromwell,
“warts and all.” I’m not sure how
it will resonate with anyone who
has never heard of him. After all,
his show, no matter the issue and
the impact, was personal. The
THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVING
Dick Vaughan
was a drumming group. None would Continued from page 9 statewide radio network.“I’d like to
have been mistaken for Massasoit New Orleans. see 10 or 12 stations across the state
and few looked like they have more Vaughan predicts that tourism where travelers can access tourism
relatives in County Cork than I do. will be the Number 1 industry information on the air,” he says.
The proposed casino in Palmer by 2010, which presents an ideal Reiterating a lesson learned from
had no local native American ration- opportunity to meld two of his his father,Vaughan says,“He taught
ale. expertise areas.With his knowl- me discipline and didn’t stand for
My brother-in-law is a professor at
edge and experience in the excuses,” and emphasized that “there
the University of Oklahoma in Indian
broadcast business and his take- is nothing you can’t accomplish” if
country where it all began with
charge attitude, he envisions a you try.
$10,000 Bingo. He has observed that
the only people in the casinos are
Indians from the other casino tribes
and it is just beggar thy neighbor.
Around the same time when I heard
of the Warren land quest, I also heard
SIXTY FIVE SIZES
(Rom’s senior citizen menu)
that Connecticut might think about
another casino. Will there be one on 65 Years Old? 65% Portions! 65% Prices!
every block? Then I want one. Fried Clams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9.43 Fried Shrimp . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9.43
I declare myself sachem of the Fried Haddock . . . . . . . . . . .10.08 Tom Turkey, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . .10.37
Long Hill Tribe and shall soon file for Baked Haddock Bites . . . . . .11.02 Rom’s Ravioli . . . . . . . . . . . . .9.07
federal recognition. Veal Parmigian . . . . . . . . . . .11.02 Chicken Parmigian . . . . . . . .10.73
Veal Cacciatore . . . . . . . . . . .11.02 Chicken Cacciatore . . . . . . . . .9.72
Dinners come with cup of soup These selections served
or Italian Salad and Potato
or Side of Spaghetti
Monday-Friday 4:00 ’til Close.
And All Day Sunday
Sorry, no substitutions
authors have a website
(http://www.jerrywilliams.org/)
179 MAIN STREET, STURBRIDGE • 508.347.3349
with a lot of audio clips that
might give a small flavor for the
man.
Many folks in this area got to
experience Jerry during the cam-
paign to stop the New Braintree
prison. There was a big Saturday
on the New Braintree Common.
Williams was there as more or less
MC. Next to him was a mock up
of Michael Dukakis. During a lull,
Jerry all of a sudden, with perfect
delivery, said,“and now a word
from Kitty (Dukakis). Pause.
MEOW.” The crowd convulsed in
laughter. It should have been in
the book.
One other item that should
have been in the book was that he
was the only supporter of busing
who ever admitted that it had all
h Inspiring Art h Fine Craftsmanship h Experienced Designers
been a mistake. He always
Live Artfully
seemed to be full of himself, but
I’ve never heard anyone else admit
it. As Jerry used to say of people
he felt okay about, he was “not a
bad guy.” h Create a Keepsake
h Make a Statement
Of course, Elman and Tolz
couldn’t include every minute of
New England
h Express Your Style
his life. No matter, there is a lot
Graphics
covering an interesting man and
his times. He did not engender
neutrality in people.You either
loved or hated him. I don’t know
STURBRIDGE MARKETPLACE
RT. 20 STURBRIDGE
what was written as the cause of
death on his certificate, but I’m 508.347.9655
sure it was not a dearth of person- h Outstanding Selection h Fine Framing h Open 7 Days A Week since 1982
ality.
THE STURBRIDGE TIMES MAGAZINE 17